This invention is concerned with blends of polyketone polymers and crystalline or semicrystalline polyamide polymers.
Crystalline or semicrystalline polyamides, such as nylon 6,6, are a class of materials which possess a good balance of properties comprising strength and stiffness which make them useful as structural materials can be added to a polyketone polymer to result in a blend with good impact strength, capable of deep drawing and solid phase forming.
By physically blending polymers of polyketone with crystalline or semicrystalline polyamides the result is a toughened polyketone, having good structural strength, as well as ductileness.
It is well known to those skilled in the art that polyamides possess many of the properties which advantageously result in impact modified plastics. The addition of polyamides to polyketone polymers has been found to yield a blend which additionally has improved "paintability" and improved ability to accept basic dyes. The novel blend has a viscosity which is easy to mold and capable of providing a quick release from the mold.
The general class of polyketone polymers of carbon monoxide and one or more ethylenically unsaturated hydrocarbons has been known for some years. Brubaker, U.S. Pat. No. 2,495,286, produced such polymers of relatively low carbon monoxide content in the presence of free radical initiators such as benzoyl peroxide. British Pat. No. 1,081,304 produced such polymers of higher carbon monoxide content in the presence of alkylphosphine complexes of palladium as catalyst. Nozaki extended the process to produce linear alternating polymers in the presence of arylphosphine complexes of palladium. See, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,694,412.
More recently, the class of linear alternating polymers of carbon monoxide and unsaturated hydrocarbons, now known as polyketones, has become of greater interest, in part because of improved methods of production.
These polymers, often referred to as polyketone or polyketone polymers have been shown to be of the repeating formula --CO--(A)--where A is the moiety of an ethylenically unsaturated hydrocarbon polymerized through the ethylenic unsaturation. For example, when the ethylenically unsaturated hydrocarbon is ethylene, the polymer will be represented by the repeating formula --CO--(CH.sub.2 CH.sub.2)--.
The general process for preparing polyketones, is illustrated by a number of European Patent Applications including European Patent Application No. 0121965 directed towards a preparation of polyketones to obtain a high yield, wherein a mixture of carbon monoxide and alkenically unsaturated hydrocarbon is polymerized in the presence of a Group VIII metal catalyst (such as palladium, cobalt or nickel) the anion of a strong non-hydrohalogenic acid having a pKa below 2, and a bidentate ligand of phosphorous, arsenic or antimony.
Polyketones prepared with the novel catalyst, result in a novel, linear alternating polyketone polymer which has not been blended with crystalline or semicrystalline polyamides to form novel and useful blends having good solvent resistance, impact strength and high melting points.
As a result, the present invention is directed towards blends of polyketones with crystalline or semicrystalline polyamides, such as crystalline nylon.